We can see that people seek more alternate forms of entertainment during the COVID-19 pandemic, gaming saw impressive growth in 2020, while gaming culture, more generally, has continued to expand and underpin many of the rising trends across the web.

You can miss out on great opportunities if you are trying to reach younger audiences, and you’re not in touch with gaming culture. Regarding this matter, Facebook has this week published its Games Marketing Insights update for 2021. The insights highlight key sage notes and trends, largely based on a survey of more than 13,246 people in July last year.

Moreover, the results highlight some important points for marketers – first off, on overall gaming growth, Facebook says that mobile gaming, particularly, saw major growth in all regions:

Facebook Gaming Marketing Insights:

Moreover, it’s also worth noting the growth of younger gamers within tat broader shift – Facebook says that:

“New mobile gamers (people who started playing after the outbreak) are significantly younger than existing players (people who were playing before) in the US, UK and Germany.”

Regarding the new gaming marketing insights, that can spark new habitual behaviors, which will influence how these users interact throughout their life – while Facebook also notes the new mobile gamers were increasingly willing to spend more money in-game than existing players, another key trend point.

However, the hard part is estimating how those same trends will play out in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Facebook notes, many gamers also used games as a social outlet, in place of in-person meet-ups.

According to the gaming marketing insights, this could mean a lot of these new gamers revert to face-to-face meet-ups instead, when possible, however, it’s still a relevant point, that people are leaning on gamers as a means of connection as much as entertainment. In terms of monetization, and the opportunity for advertisers, Facebook says that there’s general acceptance that ads are a part of the gaming experience.

That opens the door for promotional opportunities. That doesn’t necessarily mean that those gamers are taking in the context of every ad they’re shown, however, they’re open to ad-supported models, which is the first step in maximizing ad effectiveness.

Moreover, there is this too:

According to the gaming marketing insights, one of the top reasons for spending money on games among US gamers, personalizing characters with custom items was the main motivator.

We can see that this could open up a significant opportunity for fashion brands – already, we’ve seen Snapchat add digital wardrobe integrations from Jordan and Levi’s, among others, to dress up your Bitmoji characters, while Pokemon Go recently launched a new collaboration with The North Face on digital avatar items.

Based on the gaming marketing insights, the opportunity of gaming is important, and marketers that can effectively tap into this audience can facilitate major potential to boost their brand performance.